Management of recurring revenue assets can present a number of challenges that differ in substantial and important ways from the typical focus of the sales staff of a commercial entity. As used herein, a recurring revenue asset can generally refer to one or more of maintenance and/or support agreements for software or hardware, service covered products, service contracts, subscription agreements, warranties, renewables, or the like.
Optimizing revenues obtainable from a commercial entity's recurring revenue assets (e.g. service contracts and other service assets) requires resolving a number of sales challenges that may not be optimally addressed by existing solutions because of differences between renewal sales and new sales (also referred to as “initial sales”). For example, while a typical new sale process involves closing a sale or deal and moving on to a next customer, a recurring revenue relationship is by definition repetitive, and is not efficiently tracked or managed by tools designed to support new sales. In addition, the commercial entity's existing investments in sales personnel, sales processes, and information systems are typically directed to, and are optimized and supported with appropriate technology for, achieving maximum revenue performance in the product or services new sales business, not the management of recurring revenue streams and the sales activities necessary to ensure that recurring revenue assets are maintained and even increased in value.